Things that go "arf" in the night

We were awoken at 6 a.m. this morning by the sound of barking. Well, not barking exactly--it was Henry/Puddles (his cuddle toy) making barking noises. Arf arf arf arf arf. I had to laugh. Not because of the barking per se, which was funny enough. No, I laughed because, yet again, my parenting skills had been overmatched by my child's ingenuity and emerging language skills.

Here's the back story: Over the last few nights we suspect that Henry's been having dreams about scarecrows. Not quite nightmares, because he doesn't wake up crying or scared, but he's definitely got scarecrows on the brain. The woman across the street recently constructed an autumn display featuring a couple of craft-store scarecrows, and Henry is fascinated with them. Every night before bath he asks us to take him across the street to see the scarecrows. He shines his flashlight on them for a minute or so, then we go home and get ready for bed.

Perhaps not coincidentally, we've endured a lot of night waking over the past week (What, you mean shining a flashlight in the face of a creepy inanimate object right before bed might be unsettling for your toddler? --ed.). The night before last, Henry was awake from 3:30 to 5 a.m., and no amount of cuddling or back rubs could get him to close his eyes. As you may imagine, this is crazy-making for us. So when we were putting him to bed last night, I asked Henry why he woke up the night before. I didn't expect real answers, but he said, "There are scarecrows coming into my room." Ah-ha. And here's where the A+ parenting kicks in.

"Sweetie, there are no scarecrows in your room. The friendly scarecrows stay outside." Then I played my brilliant trump card: "If the scarecrows do come into your room, Puddles will start barking. If Puddles (the toy dog he sleeps with, remember) isn't barking, that means there are no scarecrows to worry about." Slam. Dunk. Puddles can't bark. There will be no barking. Henry will be reassured that there are no scarecrows in his room. Brilliant. I was so proud of my grownup powers of reasoning and trickery. The problem is licked, I thought.

Then it was 6 a.m. The sun broke weakly over the horizon. And "Puddles" started barking a greeting to the scarecrows in Henry's room. Arf arf arf arf arf. Imagination trumps reason, and it was yet another very early start to our day.

We're not going to visit the scarecrows tonight.